How do you teach your kids kindness, love and empathy?

When people make mistakes, wrong choices, and are maybe going through a rough time, that is when they need love and support from everyone around them. When others choose to pass judgment on someone for their mistakes and whatever they me be going through, and define them as that, it makes that person feel even more alone and question everything about themselves. Not to mention, it makes it harder for them to keep positive, have love and empathy for those who are judging them. Now imagine if this was your child? What if your child, did something, made some bad choices, and was going through a tough time? What if others, peers and parents decided the choices your child made, defined them as a person, the way everyone would now see them?

How do you teach your child to have kindness, love and empathy for others, when the worlds seems to be turning against them? These are questions that I ask myself daily. It seems that our world has become unforgiving, full of judgment and honestly fear stricken. Is it where you live? The people who live there? I don’t know… I do know that people find it easier to turn against one another than to come together, support, love and uplift.

I could write how great my daughter Pressley is, but really it doesn’t matter what others think or believe. I know who she is, her family does and at the end of the day that is all that matters. But for her, at her age, it effects her whole life with how and what people say and think about her. I understand parents when they hear things about other kids, what trouble they may have gotten in, poor choices they made, I do. What I don’t understand is when parents don’t ever think about how something could or would effect their own child if this happened to them… It is so much easier to say to your child,” you can’t hang out or talk to this person again”, than it is to say, “why don’t you talk to them and see if they need a friend”? This really breaks my heart on so many levels, not just for my girl, but for how people really are not kind, forgiving, and have no empathy for anyone, not even an 11 year old. Believe me, I understand parents want to protect their children from anything and everything, but I would also say, parents need to start educating themselves on what it means to be a loving human. I look at each person I meet everyday and think how they have their own story, their own struggles, I never try to pass judgment on anyone, that is taking the path of fear.

I have no anger for these parents and their kids, I can’t, they are not capable of looking at people as loving beings. I have empathy for them, I have sadness for them, for they don’t know what our life has been like. The struggles, challenges and how hard she works everyday to be happy. If they knew what she has gone through and the work she does everyday to be a better, happier person, they might rethink there thoughts. I am teaching her, this is a short period of time, that this does NOT define her as a person, it is just a bump in her path, a learning lesson that will serve a purpose. She doesn’t fully understand that and I don’t expect her to, but to teach her to love, be kind and have empathy for those who don’t for her, is only going to make her a better, stronger and loving being. The old saying “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is really a true statement, you miss out on some amazing people by judging them, by listening to others and to not read a few pages.

We all have the choice to be loving, kind and to have empathy, our kids, learn this from us, what are you teaching them?

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2 thoughts on “How do you teach your kids kindness, love and empathy?”

Great post. I do feel this is an age-old problem. People are so hobbled by their social group or religion or nation. The act of wall-building and stigmatising others was not invented by Trump. I’ve been watching a program about Elizabethan England and the bullying and abuse permeating that culture quite literally led to execution in some cases. And it was all fuelled by gossip. Closer to our own time the fifties saw rampant prejudice against girls who got pregnant out of wedlock. A girl who lost her virginity in Australia or America was a slut and not worth marrying! There were classes to teach young ladies how to catch a decent husband and the most important thing a woman could do was “stand by her man”. Thank God we have a voice now. Using it responsibly is our next challenge.